Over time many injection wells develop restrictions to flow and need to increase treating pressures in order to continue injecting fluid. Many states restrict injection pressures to keep them under the pressure required to fracture the reservoir. If an injection well will not accept fluids below this mandated pressure limit the operator must find a way to reduce treating pressure or risk having the well shut down.

Contributing factors to reduced flow can come from the source water itself. Injected fluids used can come from many sources such as produced water, seawater, aquifer, river, etc. Each type will contain different types of solids, bacteria, oxygen, as well as dissolved minerals. Even after treating the source water, over time the fluid can block pores in the rock and form wellbore skin hindering the reservoirs ability to inject.

Whether by state law or to simply improve well performance, operators have turned to the GasGun to lower injection pressures and increase injection rates. The GasGun is positioned over the injection zone and when fired it creates multiple radial fractures, exposing fresh rock and fracture flow-paths for injector fluids. This increase in permeability reduces injection pressures and has on many occasions made the zone take fluid on vacuum.